


Cigarettes After Sex

by wintercarman



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Haikyuu - Freeform, Miyatwins, Other, atsumu - Freeform, atsumumiya, atsumumiyaxreader, atsumuxreader, haikyuufanfic, miya - Freeform, miyaatsumu, miyaatsumufanfic, miyaatsumuxreader, miyaxreader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 08:40:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27468112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercarman/pseuds/wintercarman
Summary: On a person's sixteenth birthday, they are officially able to broadcast the music they're listening to to their soulmate, and hear what their soulmate plays. Y/n is eager to find her soulmate, but with a controlling mother and dead silence on the other end of the line, that's turning out to be difficult, until finally, she hears them. But hearing them for the first time was the easy part, now it's a matter of finding them. (Atsumu x Reader)
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	1. the first song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii! This is my first fanfic so I'm a litttllleee nervous to post this, but what's the worst that could happen right? This is an Atsumu x Reader fanfic, inspired by the recent TikTok trend of you being able to hear the music your soulmate is listening to. In this universe, not only can you hear their music, but if you focus hard enough with no distractions you can see what they're seeing, and hear them singing or humming along, but no other surrounding sounds.  
> Also, throughout the fic you will see some little numbers after some sentences. Those are footnotes, about some things that need extra explaining (and later in the fic will be titles of songs I had in mind while writing scenes).  
> Anyway, here it is! Please leave kudos and comments if you enjoy it. :)

I step out into the crisp morning air, a shiver running up my arm from my bare hands. It’s only November, but there have already been numerous snowfalls, and the temperature regularly drops below freezing. The mornings are especially cold when I can’t get a ride and have to walk to school before the sun has fully risen into the sky. I make a mental note to start wearing gloves.  
Thankfully, my mom is waiting in the car, so it’s already heated. I open the back door and drop my backpack on the floor, then slide into the driver’s seat.  
“Remember, drive extremely carefully, the roads are-” my mom starts.  
“Yes, I’m aware the roads are icy Mom,” I cut her off, turning in my seat to watch the rear of the vehicle as I back out of the driveway. “Anyone your way?”  
“Nope, you’re clear.”  
I swing the SUV out onto the road, then put it in drive and begin the descent off our hill towards the school. A few short minutes later, we arrive, and my mom comes to take the driver’s seat. I hug her goodbye and head to my first class, physics.  
When I reach class, I am greeted by the fact that Mr. Stephen has turned the heat up, and my friend Sylvia has brought me a caramel macchiato from the coffee shop. “Oh my gosh, thank you so much!” I exclaim, taking a sip of the steaming drink.  
“Of course! Also, I have some big news!” She gushes, looking more excited than I have ever known Sylvia to look this early in the morning. After asking, she tells me, “My Soulmate Sonar(1) went off, and it’s him! I finally found him!”  
After excitedly freaking out with her, she tells me more about him. His name is Louis, he’s from England, and he’s about a year older than us. She says that she FaceTimed him over the weekend, and he’s really cute. They’re planning for him to come visit over Winter Break.  
“I’m so happy for you Sylvia, that’s amazing,” I say sincerely, though I can’t help but feel a bit envious. I don’t want to use a Soulmate Sonar, I think that would take the magic out of finding each other. But my mom won’t let me take any steps into finding my soulmate. Plus, I haven’t heard them yet. My sixteenth birthday was almost ten months ago now. I was almost positive I heard them once, just over a month ago, but only for a fleeting moment. Since and before then, not one note.  
How can someone not listen to music for all that time? Not even in a store or passing by a street performer or something? It just seems impossible-  
“Alright everybody, let’s start lesson two of circuits,” Mr. Stephen snaps me out of my thoughts, cutting off Sylvia’s excited rambling. She tells me she’ll finish later, and we both take out our notebooks.  
The lesson couldn’t go any slower, it’s like Mr. Stephen is purposefully drawing out the vowels in his words. But after what feels like an eternity (circuits is not my favourite physics unit, if you couldn’t tell), class is finally dismissed and Sylvia and I go to meet Hermione and Bianca for lunch. We all walk to the coffee shop as Sylvia continues giving us every detail of Louis, from the colour of his eyes to what his school schedule is. I try to pay attention, and I do care about everything she’s telling us, don’t get me wrong. But I get lost in my thoughts again, wondering how someone could not listen to any music at all for ten months, how there’s no way he could avoid all musical sound, maybe something’s wrong with him and he needs help-  
“Hey, are you good?” Bianca interrupts my thoughts, falling into step beside me, Sylvia and Hermione continuing on ahead. I hadn’t realized that I fell behind.  
“Yeah, sorry. I just got lost in my thoughts,” I tell her.  
She smiles sympathetically. “I know you’re worried about them, but try not to stress, okay?” We step through the doors of the coffee shop. “You never know, maybe they’re just in the complete opposite timezone of us. Or maybe they haven’t had their sixteenth birthday yet.”  
I sigh. “I know, but I’m sure I heard them last month. I would almost bet my life on it.”  
“Almost being the key word,” she points out. “You aren’t positive. Which means that it’s most likely they haven’t turned sixteen yet.”  
I frown. I’m not convinced, but I try to believe her. “You’re probably right.” I sigh. “I should just focus on school right now. My mom wouldn’t let me meet up with them anyways, even if I did find them.”  
“Oh whatever, don’t worry about her,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “When you find them, you find them. And then you can be with them. They’re your soulmate; what’s she going to do, tell you you’re making a mistake and it’s not going to last?’  
“Oh, don’t you worry, she would find some way to force me out of it.”  
Bianca rolls her eyes. “No offence to your mom, but screw your mom.”  
I chuckle at her. “Yeah, I agree.”  
Hermione and Bianca get their drinks, plus buy Sylvia a piece of carrot cake to celebrate, and we go find a cozy table in the far corner. Bianca tells us about a new show she just started, Hermione and Sylvia talk about how they think they did on their law test this morning, and I sit quietly and listen, eating my sandwiches. The conversation eventually returns to Louis again, then somehow to me.  
“Have you still not heard anything from your soulmate, y/n?” Hermione asks.  
“No, nothing since last month,” I answer.  
“They have to be in a different time zone, like on the other side of the world, I’m telling you,” Sylvia says. “That would make it hard to catch them, and that’s excluding the fact that y/n has the sleep schedule of a child.”  
“Yeah, that’s true. You go to sleep so early, plus you take naps like, everyday, so it would be easy enough to miss them.” Hermione adds.  
“Also, not everyone listens to music as religiously as you. Some people only listen to it at parties or on road trips or something.”  
“Or,” Bianca interjects, “they haven’t had their sixteenth yet. Which is the most likely explanation.”  
“But she heard them last month,” Hermione counters.  
“She thinks she heard them last month,” Bianca corrects, “and that was only for a second. We don’t know if that was actually them or not.”  
“But-” Hermione goes to argue.  
“Guys,” I say, getting everyone’s attention. “Can we please just forget about this? It’ll work itself out eventually so there’s no point debating it.”  
“Yeah, of course, sorry,” Hermione says, looking a little embarrassed. I don’t really complain about it to them, but I’m sure they can tell it bothers me that I’ve had no interaction with my soulmate. They all apologize, and I tell them not to worry about it.  
We head back to the school, and the rest of the day goes by relatively quickly. When I get home, my mom has already left for her trip to Vancouver. A note from her is on the counter, reminding me to take my vitamins, do my chores, and go to sleep early. This is the first time she’s left me home on my own for an extended amount of time; she’ll be gone for a whole month.  
I make myself food and clean the house, then shower and cuddle up on the couch with a book. I’m reading Phantom of the Opera right now, which is painfully boring, but my mom wants me to read the classics, so I’m dragging my way through it. Before bed, I do my physics homework, then am asleep by 9:30 pm, as always. My friends tease me for my ‘childish’ sleep schedule that my mom makes me follow, and honestly, I think it’s pretty stupid too. But I do it anyways, because having a good rest will help me do better in school.

The rest of the week goes by as usual. Sylvia continues to feed us with information about Louis, and Hermione tells us that her soulmate wrote her a song.  
“It was so sweet, it’s about how he’s super excited to meet me, and can’t wait to fall more in love with me every day we spend together,” she gushes. We all ‘aw’ in response.  
“Maybe that’s what you should do, y/n,” Sylvia says. “Write your soulmate a song. Tell them to listen to some frickin’ music so you know they’re there.”  
I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind when I first turned sixteen, but my mom would flip if she ever found out. And believe me, there’s nothing she won’t discover. It’s like she has a sixth sense for snooping in my business. “My mom would never allow that.”  
Bianca groans, pushing her light reddish-brown hair away from her face. “Screw your mom, y/n, remember? Anyways, she’s out of town for a month, I’m sure you could come up with something then dispose of it in that time frame.”  
I shake my head. “No, I don’t want to risk it. Besides, Bianca’s probably right, they’re probably still fifteen or something.”  
They don’t push it and further, and the week goes on without it being brought up again.

It’s been exactly a week since Mom left. I’ve maintained my schedule, done all my homework and chores, kept reading that God forsaken book. But despite keeping up with everything, I’m finding myself struggling in physics. I had a dentist appointment the day we wrote our momentum and energy test, and it’s finally been arranged that I’ll take it tomorrow. But I’ve been so busy studying circuits, and I didn’t really understand momentum and energy anyways, so I’m completely unprepared for it. I need to study, but I had fitness today after school, and then I couldn’t catch a ride with anyone so I had to walk home, but the path was icy so I had to take the long way home, and then I had to do my chores, and my English homework, and I had my ballroom dancing class tonight-  
And now it’s 8:30 pm and I haven’t even started studying. I open my laptop and go to Mr. Stephen’s website, pulling up the notes and reviewing them. Maybe if I go fast, I can finish it before I have to go to bed. There are only thirty eight questions, I can power through it.  
An hour later, I’m on the seventh question. I can’t focus, and I just can’t seem to go any faster than the turtle pace I’m currently at. I want to put on music to help me study, but Mom doesn’t allow that.  
But… Mom’s not here.  
How would she know?  
She couldn’t find out, could she?  
I can hear Bianca’s voice in my head, and see her annoyed expression. Screw your mom, what’s she going to do? Get mad at you for studying?  
After considering it a bit longer, I unlock my phone and open Spotify. After scrolling around for a bit, I decide to settle on listening to a complete collection of Cigarettes After Sex. Immediately, I’m drawn into the music. The notes, low and soothing, surround me, the lyrics flow through the air around me, creating my own atmosphere.  
I turn my attention back to my work, and it’s infinitely easier to focus. Although I don’t really go any faster, I’m finding it easier to understand the steps and equations. It’s 9:30, normally I’d be asleep by now. But I need to study for this test, and Mom’s not here to stop me, right?  
Before I know it, hours have passed. It’s barely seemed like ten minutes, but I’m heading up the last section of questions. I’ve listened to the whole playlist now, and have the song K. on repeat. I don’t know why I just can’t seem to get enough of it right now. I check the time. 12:46 am.  
Oh my god, I stayed up that late? Jesus, I’ve been studying for so long. But I can’t stop now, I’m so close to being done.  
Finally, at nearly 1:30 am, I’m starting the last question. K. is still on repeat, and I find myself singing and humming along while I work. But as I’m just about to close my laptop and call it a night, just as the song is restarting yet again, it gets cut off.  
I share Spotify with my best friend Eliana, so my first thought is that it’s her, taking over (since it’s actually her account). But it’s so loud and aggressive, she wouldn’t listen to this in the middle of the night. Oh my god, it’s loud. It feels like it’s surrounding me, drowning me. How is it so loud? This music really made the vibe do a 360. I pull out my earbuds to prevent the oncoming headache, but-  
It’s still so big and loud-  
It’s like I can feel the reverb in my brain.  
What is going on?  
Oh my god-  
Holy shit-  
Is it actually-  
My jaw drops open, shocked.  
It’s my soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- Soulmate Sonar is a government-run program people can pay for if they want to accelerate finding their soulmate. A chip is implanted in your ear, and every song you listen to is recorded. You record every song you hear from your soulmate onto an app, and if someone else using the program’s music records match up with yours, a meeting is arranged to confirm. Not a lot of people use this though, as it is relatively expensive, and most people want to find their soulmate on their own.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I don't have a set schedule in mind yet for the uploading of new chapters, because I haven't written much and I'm pretty busy with school right now, but I will try to work one out soon. Thanks again, and please leave comments and kudos if you liked the first chapter! <3


	2. the first sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y/n was waiting to hear her soulmate for months. So what was happening on the other end of the line during all that time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiii welcome baccckkk! This is the next part of the fic, and I am extremely exhausted, so please excuse any editing mistakes there may be. I think I'm going to try to upload a chapter every Sunday, so stay tuned for next week if you enjoy this chapter! Please leave kudos and comments if you like it, and share it with your friends! <3

Atsumu was slowly lulled awake by the light dancing through his window. He opened his eyes, but immediately shut them again and pulled the blankets over his head when they burned at the brightness of the autumn morning. He just about went back to sleep, but was jarred into full consciousness when his brother abruptly swung his bedroom door open.

“‘Tsumu, hurry up and get ready, we have training camp,” Osamu said. “I’m leaving without you if you aren’t ready on time.”

“Oh come  _ on,  _ ‘Samu. Do we really have to practise the morning of our birthday?” Atsumu groaned back.

Wait.

_ It’s our birthday. _

_ We’re sixteen. _

Atsumu shot bolt upright. He looked at his brother. “It’s our birthday,” he said, the excitement in his voice rising. “It’s our birthday.” A smile spread across his face. “‘Samu, it’s our  _ birthday!”  _ He threw his blankets off and jumped out of bed. “Oh my god, have you-?”

“I heard them this morning. I think they’re Japanese, they were listening to that song that keeps getting overplayed on the radio,” Osamu answered.

“Did you see anything?” He exclaimed.

“No, I didn’t care to.”

_ “What?  _ How can you not care? They’re your  _ soulmate!” _

Osamu shrugged. “I have my whole life to find them, I’m not really worried about it right now.”

_ “How can you not be worried?”  _ Atsumu nearly shrieked. “You are unbelievable, I can’t believe we’re related,” he said, shaking his head. 

Osamu rolled his eyes and exited the room. “Get ready, we’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

Atsumu immediately turned on his phone and put on his favourite song, blasting it into his airpods. He didn’t know what he expected or what doing that would actually accomplish, but he wanted to do  _ something.  _ He was so excited, he hoped his soulmate liked his music, and they would play him something too, and he would figure out who they were soon-

He snapped himself out of it.  _ No, I can’t get my hopes up. They might not be sixteen yet, they might not speak Japanese, there are a million things that could make this take a long time, maybe even  _ years…

_ No, don’t be negative. You’ll find them soon. _ He continued getting ready, wondering if he’d hear his soulmate by the end of today or if he would have to wait a while. He just barely made it out the door before Osamu left without him. __

Weeks passed, and Atsumu had yet to hear anything. It was  _ killing  _ him, especially when Osamu was hearing his soulmate constantly.

“It’s not fair,” he complained to his team. “‘Samu doesn’t even  _ want _ to find his soulmate yet, and hears them  _ every day?” _

“Just finish your warm up, Miya,” Kita groaned. “This is volleyball practise, not therapy.”

Atsumu glared at the captain, but shut up and ran a few laps around the gym. He tried to focus on practise as much as possible, but he kept getting distracted by the music coming from the other gym, thinking it was his soulmate. In one of his few moments of focus, however, he was setting to Osamu. It was standard, nothing special, easy to hit. But mid jump, Osamu’s attention flipped to something else, and he missed the ball, flew into the net, and fell to the ground. 

“What the hell was that?” Atsumu cried at his brother. “That was a frickin’ perfect serve, how did you mess that up?”

“Sorry,” Osamu replied, looking dazed. “My soulmate started listening to music, it distracted me-”

“Uggghhhhh,” Atsumu groaned, not wanting to hear about it out of jealousy.

“Oh gimme a break, you’ve been getting distracted all the time since our birthday and you can’t even hear  _ your  _ soulmate,” his brother retorted.

Atsumu stopped short, glaring at his brother. “If you keep bringin’ that up I’m gonna hit you so hard you forget that you have a soulmate.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Atsumu took a step toward his brother. “Oh wouldn’t you, you little-”

“Hey!” Kita said in a loud voice, stepping in front of Atsumu. “Save it for later, we’re practising right now. You two both need to cool your hot heads off.”

The twins kept glaring at each other, but Atsumu turned and began to walk away with a little physical prompting from Kita. That is, until Osamu said, “Maybe the reason you can’t hear them is because they saw you and decided they didn’t want to be found.” He snickered at his own comment, thinking it was pretty funny.

He probably thought it was less funny when Atsumu turned around and ran full speed at him, tackling him to the ground.

A few weeks later, Osamu’s black eye was gone and Atsumu’s stitches on his eyebrow and lip had come out. The brothers hadn’t spoken to each other in that entire time, and were now arriving and leaving school and practise separately. Osamu had still told their teammates every time he heard his soulmate, probably just to rub it in Atsumu’s face, until Kita told him to leave it outside the court. As an extra measure, he told both of them that if either of them started any more fights,  _ especially  _ with each other, they would be taking a leave of absence from the club until after nationals. That was enough to keep the two from trying to slit each other’s throats for the time being. 

Atsumu tried to ignore Osamu, and tried not to think about what he had said. But the more time that passed, the more the doubt started to seep into his mind and cause him anxiety. Because what if he was right? What if his soulmate saw him and heard him and didn’t want him? It wasn’t unheard of, plenty of people had opted to choose their own person to spend their life with, while their soulmate was left to figure out what to do from there on their own. Atsumu was usually very confident, and would’ve easily brushed off such a ridiculous idea easily. But for some reason, this had gotten to him. Maybe because if all his confidence in himself didn’t pay off, it would make it that much more heartbreaking. Maybe his soulmate would see his confidence as narcissism. Atsumu knew that he could come off like that, but he really  _ did  _ care about other people. But would his soulmate be able to see that through the small glimpses of him they got? Probably not, it wasn’t often that Atsumu let his guard down. 

Eventually, he stopped listening to music while he got ready in the morning. He started listening to people’s quiet conversations on the bus instead of his earbuds. He started doing his homework in silence. The sound was always all the way down on his phone, in worries that music would come on and his soulmate would hear it. His mom noticed this and tried to reassure him, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t get the idea out of his mind that his soulmate wouldn’t think he was good enough, that he would be left alone, watching them fall in love with someone else through their own eyes, watching them get married and have a family and  _ be happy… _

Atsumu knew his anxieties were irrational. He knew he was playing it up in his mind  _ way  _ too much and blowing these imaginary scenarios out of proportion, but he couldn’t stop. No matter how his mom and dad chided him and how he tried to reassure himself with the statistics (only 3.2% of people didn’t end up with their assigned soulmate), he couldn’t bring himself to listen to a single note of music, hum a single melody. For almost two months, he went about his day-to-day life in silence.

But then, on January 27th, the silence was broken. 

It was about 8:00 pm, and Atsumu was laying on his bed, watching the past year’s volleyball highlights instead of doing his homework, when he heard it. The light strumming of a guitar started to drift through his room **(1)** . Initially, he panicked, thinking Osamu or his parents were playing music out loud down the hall, which he specifically told them  _ not  _ to do. He dashed out into the living room, where his parents were playing cards, and Osamu was watching T.V. with their cat on his lap.

“Where is that music coming from?” Atsumu burst out, his eyes darting around frantically.

His mom gave him a perplexed look. “What music, Atsumu-kun?” She questioned.

“That music, that guitar-” He ran to the T.V. and turned it off, much to Osamu’s dismay.

“Hey, turn that back on,” he demanded, reaching for the remote.

“I can’t, there’s music coming from it,” Atsumu explained. “Wait…” The guitar still rang through the room, with a soft voice starting to sing over it. “Damnit,  _ where is that coming from?” _

His parents looked at each other, then back at Atsumu incredulously, but excitedly. Osamu just laughed.

“What?” Atsumu spun at his brother angrily. Heat rose to his cheeks with his embarrassment, though he didn’t actually know what he was embarrassed for.

“Atsumu-kun, no one else can hear the music,” his mom said, trying to hold in her own giggles.

“How can you not hear it?” Atsumu exclaimed. “Am I going crazy?” 

“Oh my  _ god  _ you’re a dumbass,” Osamu choked out, still laughing like a mad man.

“I swear to god Osamu, if you don’t-” Atsumu stopped mid sentence. The dots finally connected in his head. His eyes widened and his jaw fell open. “Oh my god, is it-?” 

He turned to look at his parents, confirming he wasn’t wrong. When they smiled and nodded back at him, he cried out in joy.

“Oh my god,  _ yes!”  _ He cried excitedly.  _ “Yes yes yes! That is so frickin’  _ cool!” He jumped up and down like a little kid, turning between his parents and flipping off his brother. “Screw you, ‘Samu! I can hear my  _ soulmate!”  _ Osamu didn’t seem to care, he just kept laughing at his brother’s previous cluelessness. 

Atsumu sprinted back down the hall, to his room. He hastily shut the door behind him and turned off the lights, jumping onto the bed and laying on his back to stare up at the ceiling. He then closed his eyes and tried to drown out everything around him, focusing on the sweet, soft music in his ears. No, not in his ears, it was like it was  _ surrounding  _ him, drowning him in the strums. He tried as hard as he could to slow his heart rate down and concentrate, and after a few minutes, he did. 

The song had changed, and was now playing something more upbeat **(2)** . He recognized the song, but the lyrics were in another language, so he didn’t know any of them. He managed to focus enough that an image appeared in his head, dim and tunnel visioned, but an image nonetheless. It slowly began to come into vague focus, and he tried to make out his surroundings.

The image brightened, and he saw someone’s hands. Were they male or female? He couldn’t really tell. They were a darker complexion than his own, more of an olive tone than his own peachy one. Their nails were chewed short and their cuticles looked like they had been picked at. A few beauty marks and small moles littered their forearms, and a small scar was placed at the top of their left wrist, probably from an injury that they picked at until it couldn’t heal properly. 

He started paying more attention to what the hands were doing, and realized they were sifting through a closet. He tried to make out what kind of clothes there were, and saw a lot of hoodies and cardigans. His soulmate stepped back, revealing a long, pink dress hanging in the far corner of the closet. 

_ So maybe a girl?  _ Atsumu wondered to himself. 

As his soulmate selected a navy blue crewneck and took another step back, he realized there was a pair of jeans on the floor by their feet. He wondered if they were getting ready for school, or just going out. 

He suddenly realized as they started undoing the tie on their grey pajama pants that they were about to undress, and flinched at the realization, startling himself out of his concentration. He brought his hands up and rubbed them over his face.  _ Damn, that was close. _

It wasn’t that he was afraid of seeing his soulmate’s bare skin, he just felt kind of pervy seeing it before they even knew each other, and without their consent. He sighed, crawling under his covers and tucking himself in. For the rest of the night, he sat there listening to his soulmate’s music, which went from calm to upbeat to intense rock music with a very loud electric guitar solo, back to calm again. He savored every note, every melody, letting it all lull him to sleep peacefully. 

His last thought before he lost consciousness was,  _ Crap, this music isn’t Japanese. _

He excitedly told his teammates, school friends, and teachers about it the next day. They all congratulated him with big smiles, knowing how upset he had been about not hearing them for the first (almost) four months. He was ecstatic, nothing could bring his mood down, not even Osamu telling the rest of the team how he had been clueless for the first few minutes. 

The team was relieved that Atsumu had finally heard his soulmate, it seemed to release a lot of the tension that had been weighing on everyone the past few months. Finally having heard them made it a lot easier for Atsumu to focus. He wasn’t distracted thinking about them constantly anymore, and they usually didn’t listen to music after 1:00 pm until much later in the evening, so he didn’t get thrown off by the sound mid-play. 

From that day on, Atsumu was (for the most part) perfectly ecstatic. One thing still irked him though, and that was the lyrics of the music his soulmate listened to. Over a few weeks, he had only heard one ( _ very  _ vulgar) Japanese song **(3)** , which (thank god) started playing while he was still at home, so no one saw his uncomfortable squirming at the lyrics. He wondered if they even knew what the song was saying. 

He had yet to figure out the gender of his soulmate due to his inability to concentrate most days, but he wasn’t overly concerned about it. He knew he would figure it out eventually, and he would get better at focusing with a little bit of practise. What he had picked up about his soulmate, from the odd time he  _ did  _ manage to see them, was that they lived in a town, not a city, took a course in school that involved a  _ lot  _ of numbers and equations (so he was assuming they were at least a little bit smart), and another one with a lot of writing and words, and bought coffee quite often. There was a face that he was starting to recognize more often in the words class, she must have been good friends with his soulmate. 

It was about three months after his soulmate’s appearance that he finally got the information he was looking for. 

One night at about midnight, as he was falling asleep, music started to envelop once again; the soft, nice kind **(4)** . As he was falling asleep, he decided to try again at connecting with them. This time, it finally worked. He saw his soulmate, grabbing a small white-marble bag off the top of their dresser and walking into their bathroom, unzipping the bag to reveal makeup. They started piling it out onto the counter, laying it all out in an organized way. 

The edges of the image darkened, and Atsumu didn’t think he would be able to stay awake much longer. But right as he was about to drift off, Atsumu was startled awake again by his soulmate looking into the mirror. He sat bolt upright in bed, gasping in deep breaths. 

_ Oh my god. _

He had finally seen her. It was only a split second, but he had. He didn’t have time to commit much to memory, but he definitely noticed one thing. Her eyes were green. They were a soft green, that melted into an almost yellow colour around the center, and there was a slightly blue-ish ring around the outside. They weren’t particularly bright in colour, but they had stood out so clearly to Atsumu. 

He laid back down and tried to see more, but he was too worked up now, and by the time he had calmed himself again, she had turned off her music. He groaned in annoyance, and couldn’t do anything but toss and turn for hours into the night, his mind still awake with the memory of her eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- Novels by Sydney Rose  
> (2)- Sofia by Clairo  
> (3)- Touch You from Yarchin B Club  
> (4)- Falling In Love In a Coffee Shop by Landon Pigg
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading! Please leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed it, and come back next week <3 Thank you!!


	3. an overplayed song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atsumu still has doubts about revealing himself to his soulmate, but he has to do it sooner or later, doesn't he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii! Sorry this week's chapter is so short, I just started my new quarter in school and biology has been keeping me BUSY busy. I'll try to make next week's longer. :) Also thank you so much for the kudos! I know there aren't a lot but they still make me really happy, so thank you so much!
> 
> Oop and one little detail I forgot to mention before, is that when someone sees through their soulmate's eyes, words don't appear. Like if their soulmate is writing something whether it's in their language or not, the words will all be blurry and unfocused. That's why people don't just write down their phone numbers or social media for their soulmate to see.

For a whole nine months, Atsumu had avoided all music whatsoever. He had brought earplugs everywhere just in case there was background music playing somewhere, and his family had agreed to use earbuds for music while he was in the house. But then, in early October, while waiting for his bus home, a man walked up beside him, sitting down on the benches. Atsumu failed to notice the man pull a speaker out of his bag, plug his phone into it, and press play. 

A loud burst of music sounded behind him, and Atsumu’s hands immediately shot up to his ears, blocking out the sound. He turned to the man, a furious look on his face.  _ “Do you mind?”  _ He hissed menacingly, glaring harshly at him. The man stared back, not making any move to turn off or even turn  _ down  _ his music.

Atsumu hissed frustratedly, and just as the bus was about to close its doors, he ran to get on it. “What are you-” Osamu called after him, but was cut off by the air brakes as the doors sealed. This was the wrong bus for sure, but Atsumu was too pissed off to care. He just sat down at the back of the bus, crossing his arms and glaring out the window in a huff. 

Osamu texted him and asked where he was going, so he asked him to tell their parents he would be home a bit late, he wanted to ride around for a bit. He then turned off his phone, reclining into the soft cushion of the seat. After passing a few stops, music started to play. He almost started screaming at everybody on the bus due to being on edge from the man at the bus stop, but quickly realized it was his soulmate. The music was fun and uptempo, like party music **(1)** . He wondered what she was doing right now. What time was it where she was? He wished he knew.

He closed his eyes and focused on the music, trying to drown everything else out. It was a little bit difficult when a drunk man got on the bus at the next stop, but he was kicked off soon after, and Atsumu resumed trying to reach his soulmate’s eyes. 

After some time, the images started to appear to him. He saw an array of changing colours flashing everywhere, which he soon realized were LED lights. She was in a room he didn’t recognize as her own; he didn’t see any paintings or bookshelves on the walls. In front of her sat three girls, ones he had come to recognize from how often they were with his soulmate when he tapped into her view. He had even given them all little nicknames; the one with reddish hair was Freckles (due to the freckles splattered all across her nose and cheeks), the one his soulmate had the words class with last year was Fox (because her face kind of reminded him of a fox for some reason, though logically she shared no similarities with the animal), and Dimples (that one’s pretty obvious). It looked like they were all sitting in a circle in a large bed covered in fluffy blankets and pillows, their attention on his soulmate. She must have been telling them something interesting, because they all gasped and widened their eyes. They leaned in, (seemingly) peppering his soulmate with questions.

He wondered what she could be telling them that was so intriguing, until he remembered the music at the bus stop earlier.  _ She must be telling them that she finally heard me,  _ he thought to himself. The thought made him feel kind of guilty. She had been waiting nine months to hear her soulmate, and all she had gotten was half a second of some random guy’s terrible music taste. He remembered how sad he had felt waiting to hear from her, and right at that moment, he almost put in his earbuds and played her a song.

Almost.

But he opted not to, because still, what if she saw him and didn’t want him? He inwardly rolled his eyes at himself, because he knew he was being irrationally worried about it, but he couldn’t find it in him to reveal himself. Instead, he just kept listening to her music, watching the animated expressions on her friends’ faces, until someone tapping his shoulder broke his focus.

He jerked back to reality, looking for who had touched him. He was met with the grin of the man from the bus stop, and Atsumu’s expression immediately dropped into a very unhappy one.

“You’re the kid from the bus stop before, right?” The man asked, moving to take a seat across from Atsumu. 

Atsumu only glared in response, then averted his gaze out the window, where he saw another bus stop coming up in just a couple hundred meters.

The man chuckled. “Not very talkative are ya?”

Atsumu continued staring out the window with a sour expression on his face.

“Aw come on man, I just want to apologize for the loud music. I forget some people don’t appreciate the tunes as much as I do, y’know? I didn’t mean any harm.”

Atsumu grunted in response, just as the bus began to pull to the shoulder of the road. He silently got up and walked to the door, exiting as soon as they swung open with a small hiss. From there, he decided to get a cab home.

A few weeks later, Atsumu heard his soulmate’s music at an unusual time. She was usually silent between 1:30 pm and 10:00 pm, but today, she had been playing music non-stop since before lunchtime. It sounded like it was all the same artist, and although the singer’s voice was nice, it was starting to get a little annoying after five straight hours of it **(2)** .

The music continued to play during practise, and if listening to the same artist that whole time wasn’t annoying enough, she started playing a  _ single song _ over and over again **(3)** . Atsumu was trying to ignore it and focus on practise, but his teammates could see his annoyance clearly. He was getting more and more irritated, snapping at them for even the slightest mistakes. 

“Ugh, how long is she going to listen to the same fricken’ song?” Atsumu cried as he set a ball far too aggressively, sending it past Suna and outside the court. “I’m gonna go  _ crazy,”  _ he said, drawing out the ‘e’ sound. 

“Just focus on setting, ‘Sumu. You freak out at us when our soulmates mess us up,” Osamu retorted. Atsumu glared at him in response, retrieving the ball and getting back in position for the spiking drill.

Another fifteen minutes of that same song, another fifteen minutes of multiple faulty sets, and Atsumu had had enough. He let out a cry of frustration and whipped the ball in his hands to the floor. He stomped over to his bag and took out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Aran questioned.

“Telling her to shut  _ up!”  _ Atsumu exclaimed. He connected his phone to the speakers in the gym, and turned the volume on the speakers and on his phone up all the way. “I would suggest covering your ears.”

Everyone stared at him questioningly. “Atsumu, what are you-” Kita started, but was cut off by an eruption of sound **(4)** . Everyone’s hands rushed to their ears, grimaces landing on each of their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- Dancing in My Room by 347aidan  
> (2)-Cigarettes After Sex, Complete Collection on Spotify  
> (3)- K. by Cigarettes After Sex  
> (4)- Horkew by GYZE
> 
> Once again, sorry for the short chapter. But hey, Atsumu has officially made first contact! Thanks for reading, please leave kudos if you enjoyed it! See y'all next week :)


	4. an angry silent treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atsumu finally reveals himself to y/n, opening the door to her learning more about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiii! I'm sorry I've been MIA for the past two weeks, I've just been trying to keep up with all my school work (and failing lol, Biology is difficult). However, this is the last week before Winter Break, so hopefully I will be able to give some longer chapters during that! I tried not to make this chapter too short. It's not the most exciting chapter, but there's development, so I hope you enjoy! :) Also guysssssss, five hundred hits??? :') Thank you so much!!! Thank you to everyone who reads and leaves kudos, it means so much to me! Thanks for your support :)

I frantically try to concentrate, turning off my music and lights and laying down. But how on earth am I supposed to concentrate when this music is nothing less than  _ ear rape?  _ It feels like razors crawling through my ears. Nevertheless, I try to connect with my soulmate. But they only play the music for a few minutes, then go silent again. 

I lay there in bed, frozen. What the hell just happened? After, what, ten months of waiting? My soulmate shows up for one  _ obnoxious _ song, and dips? My face heats up, and as hard as I try to unclench my jaw, I can’t.  _ That’s all they’re going to give me?  _ I am so  _ filled  _ with  _ rage  _ right now, I am so  _ goddamn angry,  _ I just want to scream at the top of my lungs until my throat is in shreds. 

Instead, I pick up my phone and get off my bed. I march downstairs, grabbing my mom’s speaker off the kitchen counter as I pass. I walk into my mom’s bathroom and slam the door behind me, then connect my phone to the speaker and start scrolling through my playlists. I find the song I’m looking for, turn the volume up all the way, place the speaker beside my head, and start  _ blasting  _ it **(1)** . 

My hands try to instinctively cover my ears, but I stop myself and let the sound rip through them.  _ They’d better enjoy this, because it’s the last song they’re getting until they  _ grow up, I think to myself. 

When my song is done, I’m greeted with another one of theirs. We go back and forth for a while, and just when I think I’m going to have to forfeit because my ears can’t take it anymore, their songs cuts off abruptly before it can even finish. I remain in my place on the bathroom floor for a couple more minutes, but nothing else comes, so I go back up to my room and reenter my bed. It’s almost 2:30 in the morning now, and I’m convinced that I’m going to fall asleep in class tomorrow. I pull my comforter up over my shoulders and close my eyes. I think I’ve stayed up late enough for one night.

From that night on, I’ve stopped listening to music. There are still some cases where I can’t avoid it, like at the coffee shop and in band practise, but other than that, I’ve abstained from it completely. If my soulmate wants to be like that, well, two can play that game. 

I tell my friends about what happened the next morning. Contrary to my exhausted state, they look like they’re about to start bouncing off the walls. Whether it’s from fury or excitement, I could not tell you. 

“After all this time, they show up and do  _ that?”  _ Bianca exclaims.

“I’m so sorry y/n, that sucks,” Hermione says apologetically. 

“It’s okay,” I smile at her. “I’m just glad to know that they’re there.”

“Yeah, even if they’re such an annoying little  _ shit,”  _ Sylvia retorts. We all laugh with her.

The next few weeks seem to go by slower, probably because I don’t have music to fill in the empty spaces. It’s driving me a little crazy, but I’m surviving. Mom doesn’t seem to mind the newfound peace and quiet, and probably doesn’t mind the fact that my soulmate isn’t able to hear me when I’m so silent . So, she says nothing about it. 

I wonder if my soulmate is mad at me, that’s why they haven’t played anything yet either. But, then again, they weren’t playing anything for months before, and they had no reason to be mad at me then, so I don’t know. I try not to think about my idiot soulmate too much, it’s probably better to ignore them until they mature a bit anyways. At least I can be sure that they’re there now, so I don’t have to feel so alone. 

About five weeks have passed since the incident before either of us breaks the silence. Surprisingly enough, it’s not me who does it, and it’s not another head-splitting metal song. It sounds like pop, in another language, maybe an Asian one? East Asian? I can’t really tell, but the song sounds nice. Maybe it’s my soulmate’s way of saying sorry?

I desperately want to try and focus on the sound and connect with them, but school doesn’t end for another half an hour, so I can’t. By the time the bell has rung and I’ve run home as fast as I can, they’ve turned off the music. 

_ Damnit,  _ I think to myself. I really wanted to see them. To try and coax their music back, I play a song of my own, then turn it off. I don’t get a response. I try again and again, and I think that nothing’s going to happen, but just as I’m about to give up and go make myself some food, they play me something. Yet again, it’s in what sounds like an Asian language that I can’t understand, and it’s nice and soothing. I push my head under my pillow and try to dive into the notes, the sound of each guitar string being plucked. Slowly but surely, their vision becomes mine. 

As a room (what I’m assuming is their bedroom) comes into view, it occurs to me that this is the first glimpse of my soulmate I’ve ever gotten. I know absolutely nothing about them, other than if they ever did like Cigarettes After Sex, they probably don’t anymore. God, who knows how long they’ve been able to see me? I listen to music  _ constantly,  _ they’ve probably had so many opportunities to look into my life, and yet I’m completely clueless about them. I don’t even know what gender they are. 

I refocus on the room in front of me.  _ Guess it’s time to find out.  _ It’s not very big, but they’ve somehow managed to fit a multitude of posters onto their walls. I look closer- volleyball posters.  _ I wonder if they play?  _ Further investigation reveals that they probably do, based on the volleyball next to the closet and what look like sports trophies on the floating shelves above it. A picture frame with some kind of certificate in it stands behind them, but of course, any writing that there may be on it is too blurry to read. Assuming I could even read it, it’s not like I can speak in a thousand tongues. Based on their music, this is somewhere in East Asia. The words may as well be random keyboard smashing gibberish. 

My soulmate moves towards their door (which is covered in a life-size poster of who I’m assuming is a famous volleyball player). They step into their hallway, light grey walls and dark wooden planks on the floor. They step across the hall into another room, the bathroom. I hope to catch a glimpse of them in the mirror, but they don’t even look in it. They grab a toothbrush and toothpaste, look at their phone (probably for the time because they turn it off immediately after), and turn and leave once again, toothbrush in hand. I internally groan in frustration.

_ Well, they’ll have to go back again when they’re done with their teeth, so maybe I’ll see them then.  _

They go back to their room and collect (I’m assuming their school things) into a bag, then walk out into their kitchen. The colour scheme correlates with the one in the hall, but adds navy to the cupboards. It’s very pretty. 

They grab a pre-packed lunch kit from the fridge, along with an energy bar from a bowl on the edge of the counter, then return to their room and drop both in their bag.  _ Finally,  _ they return to the bathroom and-  _ uggghhh, just look at the bloody mirror already!  _ I’m getting more impatient by the second, I want to see what they look like so badly. The seconds it takes them to clean out their mouth feels like hours, but when they finally put their toothbrush down and look into the mirror, it’s  _ so  _ worth it.

They-  _ he, I finally know-  _ is… 

_ Breathtaking.  _

He has hazel-golden eyes, and even with only the dim sky light streaming in from the window, they look like they’re  _ glowing.  _ He has golden-blond hair, with a darker undercut. I’m guessing I was right about his nationality, he looks to be East Asian. He reaches a hand up to run through his hair, and my  _ god, his forearms- _

“Y/n? What are you doing?” 

I yelp in surprise, pulled out of my connection with him. My mom is standing in my doorway, holding a plate with avocado toast on it. 

An uncomfortable amount of seconds pass before I realize she’s waiting for my answer. “Oh, I was just,” I pause, wracking my brain for something believable to tell her, “trying to take a little nap. School was really, uh, tiring today.”

“You know you shouldn’t take mid-day naps, y/n, you’ll mess up your sleep schedule,” she lectures me.

“I know, I was just going to lay down for half an hour.”

“Well, it’s been half an hour since you got home, so it’s time to get up and do something else.” She sets the plate down on my bed.

“Yes, Mom.”

She leaves and closes the door behind her. I breathe out a sigh of relief. Thank God she bought that, I can’t imagine she’d be happy about me wasting valuable time on something as pointless as a boy (because of  _ course  _ my soulmate was going to be a boy, no daughter of hers would be caught dead being anything other than straight). 

Over the next few weeks, I continue to find out more about him. On weekends, I stay up later than usual to try and see him. So far, I’ve gathered that he watches and plays volleyball  _ religiously,  _ has a brother (I think they’re identical twins,) who he fights with a lot (and who  _ really  _ likes eating, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his brother without some sort of food in his hands), and his only friends seem to be his team mates (he doesn’t talk to anyone at school or outside of it other than them). I still don’t know his name, but I don’t really have any way of finding that out, seeing as you can’t see any written language through your soulmate’s vision. We really have no way to communicate with each other at all.

But, Bianca, being the genius she is, suggested that I hang a Canadian flag in my room, to show him where I'm from, so I did. My mom asked why, and I told her I just wanted to decorate my walls a bit more, so although she seemed suspicious, she let me keep it. 

It’s only been a few days since I put it up. I come home from school and he's playing his music, so I lay down to listen to it. When I connect to him, he’s in his room getting ready for school, like he usually is at this time. But when he goes to walk into the bathroom to brush his teeth, something has changed. The back of his door isn’t just the volleyball player poster anymore, there’s something else on it. In the top right corner, filling in the empty space, is a white flag with a red circle in the center.

Seeing him for the first time didn’t startle me enough to shake me out of the connection, but for some reason, this does. I sit bolt upright in my bed, my heart feeling like it’s going to pound out of my chest.

_ He’s from Japan! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- Ten Tonne Skeleton by Royal Blood
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave comments and kudos if you did! I'll try my best to post again next week, I'll see you then! <3


	5. atsumu's a simp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiiii I'm back with another chapter! Sorry it's so late in the day but I mean, better than just ghosting for two weeks lollllllll. I got the chapter done early for once so I think it might be a little longer than usual, but I'm not positive. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Nothing too exciting but every story needs development before the big scenes. Thanks for reading!

Atsumu hated being the first to break. He had been giving her the silent treatment for what, a year now? Why was it suddenly so excruciatingly hard to resist reaching out to her? Maybe it was that first taste of interaction, and now he was hooked. Not that the interaction was exactly friendly, the only reason he had even broken the silence was because she was so  _ annoying _ .  _ How many times can one person listen to the same damn song?  _

Or maybe it was because he didn’t have her music to listen to anymore. He had heard some short, quiet snippets here and there, but it wasn’t  _ her  _ music, he could tell. It was just random music she heard in her day-to-day life. The fact that he had nothing to listen to anymore, along with that she was obviously mad, or at the very least annoyed with him, was making it very difficult for him to stay silent. Yeah, he didn’t want her to see him and not want him, but she was already acting like she didn’t, so what did he have to lose?

Finally, after a sleepless night and unintentionally waking up too early for school, Atsumu swallowed his pride and played her a song **(1)** . Then another and another, in hopes that she would respond with one of her own. He missed her music; when he first started hearing it he thought it was too slow (and sounded like it was probably a sappy love song), but he had grown to appreciate how soothing it was, in its own and because it reminded him that there was someone out there for him. He played his music for about forty-five minutes, before turning it off and getting up to get ready for school. 

He didn’t expect her to play anything back for him, but about fifteen minutes later, she did. But she only played one song. He waited for her to play another one, and she did, then turned it off again. She did it once more before Atsumu realized what she was doing, and put his own playlist back on. He continued to get ready for school while carrying his phone around so the music could be heard, brushing his teeth and packing his lunch. As he was going to check that his hair wasn’t too messy, a shiver shot up his spine. Not thinking anything of it, he finished up in the bathroom and left for school. 

As he walked to his bus, he wondered,  _ She must’ve seen me, does she still want me?  _ He sighed and tried not to worry about it.  _ Ain’t no goin’ back now. _

After their interaction, she started playing her music again, but not as often as before. She never played her music when he was getting ready for school, and it seemed to have become an unspoken rule that he played his music during that time and while he was at practise, and she played hers later in the day while he was still in class, as well as when she was getting ready for school (which was late at night for Atsumu). He didn’t mind though, he liked staying up late watching volleyball videos, then falling asleep to the sound of her playlist. And it wasn’t like he paid all that much attention in class anyways, he just had Osamu re-explain it when they got home. One thing he _did_ mind, however, was how often she played that _damn_ song, the one that had made him snap at her in the first place. He guessed this was her way of punishing him for being an ass. She always played it while she was studying, and that was often.

Hearing her and getting to see her was pretty normal for Atsumu, but the fact that she knew he was there now somehow made it more exciting with every song she played. It was like she was inviting him to be a part of her life, even if they were in different parts of the world.

It occurred to him that this must be a completely different experience for her. Sure, it was exciting to have some form of communication going on, but he already knew so much about her, it was almost like keeping contact with an old friend. He, on the other hand, was a complete stranger to her. He didn’t even know if she knew what he looked like yet, it had taken him a few weeks to catch her in front of a mirror. For her, every moment she connected to him was probably something new. It made him feel bad for leaving her in the dark for so long. She was almost seventeen, and only just now getting to know him. He understood the feeling all too well (except he only had to deal with it for four months before her birthday), so he really didn’t know why he had made her go through that too. He promised himself that he would apologize to her when they finally met.

It had been just over three weeks since the beginning of their correspondence, and she broke the unspoken rule. When he woke up to get ready for school, she was already playing music. He checked the time, and saw he had a few minutes to spare. 

_ Why not? _

He pulled his covers over his head and did his best to relax into the sound, clearing any un-soulmate related thoughts from his mind. He was getting better at this, so it only took a couple minutes for his vision to start connecting to hers. But he lasted no more than thirty seconds before his adrenaline spiked and he was back to staring at his own walls again. 

Without thinking, he jumped out of bed and ran to the living room. He started tearing apart storage bins and cupboards, but couldn’t find what he was looking for. Without cleaning his mess, he relocated to the hall closet, pulling baskets off the top shelf and spilling their contents onto the wooden floor.

“What’s that racket?” His mom said, stepping out of her room down the hall. “Atsumu, what’re you doing? You’re makin’ a bloody mess!” 

“The flags,” he said breathlessly. “Where’re the flags?”

“Which flags would you be referrin’ to?”

“The Japanese flags, from Foundation Day.”

“Oh, those? We got rid of ‘em last spring, we figured we could get some new ones next year.”

Atsumu stopped what he was doing and looked up at his mother. “Huh? What’d ya go doin’ that for?” He exclaimed. He stood and ran to his room, grabbing his backpack, then ran towards the front door. “Gotta go early Ma, see you later!”

“Atsumu-” She called after him, but he slammed the door behind him and kept running down the street as fast as he could, past his bus stop and towards the small convenience store a few blocks away.

By the time he got there, he was gasping for breath. It wasn’t exactly far, but it doesn’t matter how athletic you are when you sprint the whole way there, you’re going to be tired. He entered the store and went straight for the front counter. The old man behind it looked up skeptically from his newspaper.

“You alright, kid?” He asked.

“Depends, you got flags?” Atsumu answered.

The man furrowed his eyebrows. “Flags?”

“Japanese flags,” Atsumu repeated. “You got ‘em?”

The man remained still for another few seconds, then nodded, pointing to the back corner of the store. “All different sizes, back there.”

Atsumu thanked the man, then went to find them. He was about to select the biggest one, but realized he had nowhere to put it. His walls were already plastered top to bottom with volleyball posters. He didn’t want to take those down…

He eventually decided on a smaller one, he was sure he could find somewhere for it. As he paid for it at the counter, the old man asked again, “You okay?”

“Yeah, why?” Atsumu responded, puzzled. He figured the fact that he came in here looking like he just ran a marathon must’ve seemed weird, but not weird enough for the man to ask him if he was okay a second time. 

“‘Cause you look like yer still in yer pajamas and ya don’t have a jacket on. It’s cold out there, y’know. You’ll catch somethin.’”

Atsumu’s eyes widened as he looked down to observe himself.  _ Shit,  _ he  _ was  _ still in his pajamas. He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oops, guess I was just a little over excited about the flag.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Ya like Foundation Day that much?”

Atsumu laughed. “Nah, this is for somethin’ else.” 

He gave Atsumu one last questioning glance, then turned his attention back to his newspaper with a shrug, saying nothing else.

Atsumu exited the store and started running home, a slower pace than last time. He hoped he had enough time to go back and change out of his pajamas before his bus left. 

“Atsumu, can I speak with you after class?” Atsumu’s English teacher asked him as the students were packing up.

“Uh, sure, Ito Sensei,” he answered. Was he in trouble? He had been handing in all his assignments on time. In fact, his grade in English had drastically improved in the past month. Turns out, studying really did help.

Atsumu made his way to the front of the room as everyone else streamed into the hall. “Tell the guys I’ll be right there, ‘Samu. I’ve gotta talk to Ita Sensei real quick.” His brother nodded, and headed off to practise. He approached his teacher’s desk. 

“Atsumu, you’ve been doing significantly better than you were just a few weeks ago,” she began.

“Thank you, Sensei.” He said politely.

“In fact, I would dare to say you’re at the top of the class now, or at least very close.”

Atsumu did an auditory double take. Did he hear that right? “Uh, really?”

“Yes, and not to offend you, but it’s quite surprising,” she said. “I was wondering, have you taken an interest in actually learning to speak English?”

He perked up at the statement. “Actually, yes. Do you know of a course I could take outside of school?”

She nodded. “There’s one at the college. Normally you would have to pay for it, but if we register you through the school, it’s free. The only issue is it’s a night class, and it’s during the week, so you would be out quite late on a school night.”

“That’s fine,” Atsumu replied, “I would be totally okay with that. I’d love to register.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on that then! Keep up the good work, Atsumu,” she said, and he bowed and started towards practise.

This was great news for Atsumu. If the flag on her wall was any indication (and he was pretty sure it was), his soulmate was from Canada. Of course, French was also one of Canada’s national languages, but he was pretty sure that English was much more common. And if he had calculated their time difference right, based on what she was doing at different points in his day, she was far away from the French-speaking areas. Learning English was a safe bet. 

When Atsumu got to practise, he related to his teammates what had happened. They all started teasing him, calling him a simp and saying he was getting carried away. Maybe they were right, but Atsumu didn’t think so. And even if he did agree, who cared? This wasn’t some random girl he met at a game, this was his  _ soulmate.  _ He didn’t have to personally meet her to know there was just about nothing he wouldn’t do for her. 

_ Jesus,  _ he thought,  _ imagine how hopeless I’ll be when I see those eyes in person. I’ll probably go braindead.  _

Just then, a ball hit him in the back of the head. “Think about her later Atsumu, we’re at practise,” Aran scolded. 

“Yeah, or Kita’s gonna whoop yer ass,” Osamu added. 

Atsumu picked up the ball and whipped it back at Aran, who side-stepped it easily. “I’m gettin’ there, okay? Just gimme a damn minute.” He picked up another ball that had rolled his way and spiked it towards the wall, then started running laps to warm up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- Marigold by Aimyon
> 
> Sorry this week's chapter isn't very exciting, but this story is a slow burn (of course, slow burn doesn't mean boring but I'm working towards new developments I promise!). I'm thinking there's going to be a relatively big development in the next two or three chapters (possibly more but if it's not soon I'll fill the space with other fun stuff). Anyways, it's late and I feel kind of brain dead so I'm going to end these notes right here, thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it please leave comments and kudos, I've only gotten one comment so far but it made me so crazy happy! Thank you so much, see you guys next week!


	6. an unexpected trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy... How y'all doin'... Um chile ANYWAYS so (why am I talking in November/December's trends? Anyways), I did indeed fall into a depressive pit and not post for over a month. Are we gonna talk about it? No. However, I will say that I lost absolutely all motivation, and couldn't focus on anything. Honestly I'm still feeling pretty unmotivated but it's the middle of the night and I'm having somewhat of a breakdown and my parents aren't home so I'm just listening to loud music and writing fanfiction lollllllll, so anyways yeah. This chapter, once again, isn't the most exciting, but we're leading up to something juicy, I promise! Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and please leave kudos and comments if you do!

I want to look into Japanese lessons  _ so  _ bad, but I can’t. There’s about a fifty fifty chance my mom would let me, and even if she did, I don’t have the time. Between band practise, music lessons, studying and doing homework, school, track, and making time for my friends, I just have no way to fit it into my regular schedule. So for now, I’m settling with doing an hour on Duolingo at least once a week. It’s really difficult having to learn a new language completely from scratch with no proper instruction, but I’m making as much progress as I possibly can given the circumstances (although that really isn’t much).

I’ve been working on something else, too. When Sylvia first suggested writing a song back in November, I shot the idea down. I was too worried my mom would catch on to what I was doing, and get mad at me. I still am worried, to be honest, though I know my fear is irrational. Yeah, the lyrics are going to make it obvious it’s meant for my soulmate. But it shouldn’t be that hard to hide the song from her, should it? I can work on it after she goes to bed, and officially play it for him when she’s at work (though that’s rarely). 

My soulmate has been a welcome distraction from life lately. School is stressful, my parents are stressful, everything is stressful. I don’t know if it’s because my dad isn’t here to take all the heat off me, but Mom has been getting mad at me for the smallest things lately. Not to say that we’ve never had our differences, in fact, we argue over little things relatively often. I know she doesn’t like that I don’t always agree with her and I have my own opinions, but where it actually counts, I am a good kid. I’ve lived my entire life the way she’s wanted me to, everything I’ve basically ever done has been to make her happy. Can she not see that? Why does she  _ insist  _ on causing such a big issue over the most minute things? I don’t know, all I know is that it’s very hard to deal with, especially when my dad is away.

When he initially left for this job in September, he was supposed to be three weeks at the most. Now, it’s coming up on five months since he left. I’m not sure if I’m more surprised at how hard I’m taking it, or that I’m dealing with it as well as I am. It isn’t unlike him to be gone much longer than he says he will, but this must be a record. And with him gone, he isn’t here to take the fire when Mom gets too worked up, or calm her down when she starts flipping out for no reason.

Then there’s the stress of the idea that he will, eventually, be coming home. It feels more natural when he’s gone than it is to have him here, it’s going to feel like welcoming a stranger into our house, and with my social abilities, you can count on it being awkward. How am I even going to spend time with him? My schedule is full as is, without adding another person to it.

Overall, life is just getting a little too much for me lately. I’ve tried to convince myself that it’s just because it’s winter, or that it’s because I’m PMSing, but I don’t really believe it. The only time the weight really seems to lift off my shoulders is when I get to just lay in bed and listen to my soulmate’s music, watch him get ready for school. I wish he would play his music more often, it’s comforting to know he’s there.

_ Maybe I should include that in the song? _

I pull my phone out of my pocket and open my notes to write the idea down.

“What are you doing, y/n?” Asks Sylvia.

“Hm?” I look up, drawn from my own thoughts. Her words register a second later. “Oh, just writing down something I thought of.”

“Oooh, what is it?” Asks Hermione.

“Please share, I am literally looking for  _ any  _ reason right now to take a break from this god-forsaken studying,” Bianca adds. 

“Okay, well, you remember when Sylvia said I should write a song for my soulmate?” I say.

Sylvia doesn’t seem to remember ever uttering those words, but Bianca and Hermione do. 

“How is he, by the way? Any new developments?” Asks Bianca.

“Nothing really,” I reply. “We’ve been listening to music on a kind of schedule, which is fine, but I’m just getting the same parts of his day over and over again. I will never get tired of seeing him do his hair before school, but it’s getting a little irritating, not learning anything new.”

“Maybe you should play your music during his scheduled time. Throw a curveball, you know? Switch it up a little,” Bianca suggests. I agree with her, then she says, “Anyways, you were telling us about what you were writing down.”

“Right, so I think I’m going to write a song for him, and I was just writing down that maybe the song should mention that I’d like to know more about him than just his morning routine and that he plays volleyball  _ very  _ aggressively.” I’m too embarrassed to give them all the details of my thoughts. “Kind of like we were just saying.”

“That’s a good idea!” Hermione exclaims. “Plus, I bet he’ll appreciate the extra effort of you writing it yourself.”

“But how is he going to understand it?” Sylvia interjects.

I tilt my head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s from Japan, isn’t he? How do you know he’ll understand English?”

I freeze mid sip of coffee. “Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.” I look between the three of them frantically. “Damnit, what do I do now? How common is it that people from Japan will speak English too?” 

Bianca picks her phone up off the table and asks Google. She cringes. “Well, according to the internet, less than eight percent and maybe only even  _ two  _ percent of the population speak it fluently, and less than thirty percent speak it at any level.”

_ “Ugggghhhh,”  _ I groan, laying my head on the table. “This is so  _ frustrating.”  _

“Aw, don’t be too disappointed y/n,” Hermione says. “He knows you’re from Canada, right? So maybe he’s been learning some English. Even if he can’t understand the lyrics, maybe he’ll be practised enough to write them down and use a translator or something.”

“Yeah, cheer up y/n, all is not lost,” Bianca says in her most 1800s British voyager accent. 

We all laugh at her antics, until Sylvia’s face drops. “Oh my god,  _ why?”  _ She says with an irritated groan. 

“What?” I ask, turning toward the direction she’s looking. My smile disappears too. 

The icing on the cake; one of the resident rich side girls has upgraded herself to resident judgmental bitch. She’s always been sort of unfriendly towards me, since we met in seventh grade, but has never started any real issues. Even now, she’s too much of a pussy to say anything to my face, but for some reason, she’s been whispering about me. I’ve heard from a couple people that she makes fun of the way I dress, and my hair (I dyed it darker and got curtain bangs,) to her little posse of friends, and looks for any way to scrutinize my every move. She’s just a dumb blonde who only passes any of her classes by copying off her friends, so I really don’t care what she or any of her bitchsquad thinks, but with everything that’s already been on my mind, it really just doesn’t help ease up the stress. 

The girls and I come to this café all the time to do homework, and out of nowhere, she has been, too. I don’t know if it’s because she genuinely likes the place or because she wants more opportunities to judge me, but either way, it’s incredibly annoying. Neither her nor any of her friends ever say anything to us, just send little smirks our way while whispering and laughing to one another. 

“God, what did I do to be  _ graced _ with Averi’s grade six mean girl antics?” I say to myself. 

“Just try to ignore her, y/n,” Hermione says, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “She’s just here to steal everyone else’s homework and waste time.” 

“Yeah, I know,” I reply. 

We all get back to studying and doing homework.

“Remind me why I agreed to  _ take  _ this stupid class?” I groan. I can’t believe we’re only just halfway through the semester.

“Because it looks good on Uni applications,” Sylvia answers, “and because you love me.” She smiles widely.

I sigh loudly, and the teacher calls the class’s attention to the front. 

“Good morning students, how are we today?” She says. A few half-hearted groans meet her in response. 

She continues without acknowledging the lack of enthusiasm. “I have a really exciting announcement!” A few people look up, but no one takes the bait. 

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she gets tired of waiting for one of us to ask, and goes on with her announcement. “Some of you may have heard of the typhoon that hit the Philippines. Typhoons aren’t uncommon in that area, but this one has done more damage than usual. Several homes and schools were destroyed, along with other town buildings. Many people are displaced right now, and they’re asking for volunteers to come help distribute food and water, and set up shelters.”

That catches everyone’s attention.

“So, seeing as this is a Leadership and Volunteer class, I ran it by the principal, and we have the go ahead to take a field trip there!”

The whole class breaks out in excited gasps and whispers, students discussing amongst themselves how much it will cost and if their parents will allow them to go. 

“Quiet down, I haven’t given you all the details,” she shushes the class. “The trip will be coming up very soon, from April 6th to April 20th. That leaves only a week to get permission slips and payments in, then we’ll leave the next week. On the topic of payments, we’ve raised quite a lot in fundraising this year, so it won’t be unbelievably expensive. Still, it  _ is  _ an international trip, and it’s short notice, so the payment must be made in full, all at once. The cost will include all hotel, food, and travel expenses, and will be $600 per student.”

The whispering reignites itself. 

“I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s actually much less than it would’ve been. We’re being partially sponsored by a few different companies in Kelowna, and the housing will be cheap, seeing as we’ll be staying in tents for the majority of the trip.” She begins walking around the class, handing out permission forms. “Like I said, you have only a week to get permission forms and payments sorted out, so if you’re planning on going on this trip, make quick work of it.”

Sylvia and I receive ours, and she immediately starts filling it out. 

“Are you going to go?” I ask, though it seems pretty obvious.

“Aren’t you? Even if you don’t want to, your mom will probably make you, for the volunteer hours,” she says.

“That’s true,” I agree, and take a pen out of my bag to fill my form as well.

Two weeks later, we’re en route. A parent volunteer hands out itineraries, although Sylvia and I already studied them during class. Our first flight is from Kelowna to Vancouver, where we’ll immediately board our next flight, that will take us to Bangkok (with one stop for fuel in the middle). We’ll have approximately a four hour layover in Bangkok, then take our last flight into Manila. We’ll spend the night in a hotel there, then take a bus to Santa Ana, where our volunteer work will take place. 

“Sylvia, you downloaded the Harry Potter movies, right?” I ask her.

“Yeah I did, did you find a show for us to watch?” 

“Yep, we’re all set.”

After going over the itinerary, we decided we were going to try our best to stay awake for the entirety of the flights, so that we won’t be jet lagged. The Philippines are sixteen hours ahead of us, so our sleep schedules will be  _ very  _ wrong if we don’t stay awake. 

On the flight, Sylvia and I spend the  _ entire  _ first flight watching every Harry Potter movie, finishing just as the airport comes into view. We nudge each other awake every few seconds, just trying to keep our eyes open until we can get into the airport and buy some coffee and food. Eventually, we resort to dipping our fingers in our icy water, and running it over our faces. It does enough to last us, and we rush for the food areas. We order from a place called The Coffee Club, and drink our coffee as quickly as we can, then order another. When everyone else is done eating, we all make our way to our departure gate to put our things down. 

“I shouldn’t have had that second cup, I’m all jittery now,” I say.

Sylvia is less affected, as she drinks coffee a lot more often than I do. “Really? I could go for a third one, I actually think I might.”

“Oh! Can we run there?”

Sylvia groans. “Fine, but only there, not back.”

I dash ahead of her, around pillars and corners and back to her, who is taking her time with a slow jog. I keep sprinting around until security tells me I have to stop, and I slow down to Sylvia’s pace. The guards seem content with that, and move on their way. As soon as they’re out of sight, I start running circles around Sylvia again, taking up less space than before. 

By the time we return to our gate, I’ve burned off most of my physical energy. Sylvia and I decide to work on our Pre Calc homework to pass the time, and we share her airpods to listen to music. They die after about an hour and a half, so we switch to using our own earbuds with our own music. I, as I usually do while studying and doing homework, listen to Cigarettes After Sex. I turn the volume up all the way, but they’re still too quiet. I’m sure everyone can hear, and I wish I had bought new ones for this trip.

Hours pass, and Sylvia and I have gotten through over half of our Pre Calc homework when our plane starts boarding first class. We start packing our bags again, getting ready to board.

“Oh, I forgot my airpods charging over by Mrs. Ferrier, would you mind grabbing them for me?” Sylvia asks just as they announce for our class to board.

“Yeah, sure.” I jog to the table beside our teacher and retrieve the airpods. My own music is still blasting while I make my way back, and as I’m going to pull my earbuds out of my ears, someone grabs my wrist and whips me around.

My first thought is that someone is trying to snatch the airpods from my hand, and I instinctively raise a fist. The person flinches and covers their face, releasing my wrist. I hold my position as they lower their hands, ready for if they try anything.

Finally, their hands are low enough to reveal their face.

I drop the airpods.

I drop my phone.

My backpack falls off my shoulder and down my arm, and I make no move to stop it.

I can’t. 

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t blink.

Because he’s here.

It’s him.

It’s fucking  _ him. _

It’s  _ his  _ golden hair.

_ His  _ hazel eyes. __

It’s him.

It’s _ him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s him. _

_ It’s- _

“It’s you,” he says breathlessly, in accented English. “It’s actually you.”

I try to say something, but every coherent sentence my brain is capable of forming has been erased. All the million times I’ve thought about and planned what to say to him when we finally met, they’ve all vanished. 

Finally, of everything I could say to my fucking  _ soulmate,  _ I settle on, “You speak English.” Less a question, more a statement of astonishment (and  _ stupidity,  _ Jesus Christ).

“Uh, y-yeah,” he stammers. He stares at me, his eyes roaming up and down until they land on mine. We stand motionlessly like that, until he says, “You changed your hair.”

“Yeah, uh, a few weeks ago,” I barely manage to reply.

A guilty look washes over his face. “I have not seen, I have been very busy.”

“O-oh that’s fine, don’t feel bad,” I reply quickly. 

He smiles slightly. “It looks pretty.”

I feel the heat rushing to my face, and finally break the eye contact to look at my suddenly very interesting hands. “Thank-”

And in an instant, I’m being dragged away by Sylvia. “Y/n, it’s the last boarding call! You don’t have time to be flirting with pretty boys.”

She’s dragging me so fast I can barely manage to keep on my feet. I try to turn around but she pulls me back to her, telling me to hurry up before we miss our flight. I manage to turn my head still, and the first  _ smart  _ thing I’ve said comes out of my mouth as I watch him stare after me, looking startled.

“What’s your name?” I say. 

He tilts his head at me. 

_ He didn’t hear. _

As loud as I possibly can without full out screaming,  _ “What is your name?” _

I barely hear his response as I’m dragged out the glass doors to the boarding dock.

“Miya Atsumu!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the chapter, if you liked it come back in 25-30 business days for another one lollllll. Just kidding, I'll try my best to update sooner than last time. Sorry for any editing errors, I decided that I was too lazy to edit the second half because it's four in the morning and I just want this bitch uploaded. Thank you so much for reading, love yaaaaaaa <3 :)
> 
> EDIT: hold up wtf 800 HITS?????? WHAT THE HELL Y'ALL THANK YOU SO MUCH :')


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